The Ascent
by random.chick.heart
Summary: "It's a lie and he knows it and he hates that too, that he's so far gone he can't even take solace in pretending anymore." Alternate ending to 2E12 "The Descent." D/E for now, possible future D/E/S.


Title: The Ascent  
Pairing: Damon/Elena, eventual Stefan/Damon/Elena OT3  
Disclaimer: The following story is written entirely for fun and not for any profit. No attempt is made to supersede or infringe upon the copyrights held by any television or publishing companies, who have produced product upon which this story is based.

Spoilers: Up to 2.12 'The Descent'

Author's Note: For now this is a one-shot, but that may change. Reviews greatly appreciated!

* * *

He remembers feeling numb, that night in 1864. Seeing the church ablaze, believing Katherine was inside and lost to him forever, it hadn't filled him with the unbearable grief he was experiencing now. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him _(at the time anyway)_, but all he could feel was empty. Resigned. He would be dead soon (really dead, not walking-around-witnessing-your-lover's-immolation dead), he thought, and none of it mattered anymore anyway.

When they opened the tomb and Katherine wasn't inside, when Anna told him that she had known where he was all along, that he had spent the last century and a half pining for someone who had never felt the same way, it felt like a knife (or 50) to the chest – hot and sharp and ripping through the heart he would have denied he still had. She wanted to make it better then too, he recalls, wrapping her tiny arms around him in the woods outside the tomb, like a _hug_, of all things, could ease that kind of pain. The ridiculous thing was that, in some small measure, it had.

It doesn't now. This _thing_ inside him is too much, too big, too _raw_. An agonizing ball of 145 years worth of grief and remorse and regret and anger and rejection and unrequited love and desperate aching _need_ that only grows the harder he tries to push it down, away, back in the place where it can't touch him because nothing touches him. He feels like he can't breathe _(even though he doesn't need to)_, like he's going to throw up _(he didn't know until today that vampires could)_, like he wants to tear his own heart out of his chest just to _not feel this way anymore. _

Like he wants to rip her throat out just so there's no one left to tell him that he should feel.

It's her fault, after all, her and Stefan's. If it weren't for their constant efforts to get him in touch with his human side, if it weren't for how much they both just _cared_ about him, he wouldn't have to care about anything at all. If Stefan had never come back to Mystic Falls _(if he hadn't been pathetically carrying around a grudge from a century and a half ago)_, if Elena had just never existed period, he could have carried on happily spending his unlife murdering and rampaging, and causing general mayhem, never feeling anything deeper than a paper-cut.

It's a lie and he knows it and he hates that too, that he's so far gone he can't even take solace in pretending anymore.

She means to comfort him. She's not actually trying to kill him via emotional assault. He knows this. In some ways it only makes it worse. He has no right to take comfort in her. He wants to bury himself inside her, wrap her around himself and lose himself completely, and the knowledge that he can't and all the reasons behind that, are more than he can take.

He thinks maybe he hates her for being here. He thinks if she holds onto him for a second longer he won't be able to stop himself from doing something he'll regret, from ruining it all over again. He thinks maybe it would be better if he did ruin it, if he drove her away for good. He thinks she's been holding on to him for far longer that could be considered strictly 'friendly' and maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't ruin anything. He thinks maybe he SHOULD kill her, and put them all out of their misery once and for all.

Before he realizes what he's doing his arms have moved to wrap around her, his right hand sliding up to tangle in her hair. He buries his face in her neck and tries to remember how to breathe.

* * *

She thinks her heart stops when he pulls her tightly against him. She's playing in dangerous territory here and she knows it, but tells herself that he needs this, dammit _(maybe she does too_) and keeps holding on_._

His arms around her are like a vice. For a moment she's acutely aware of just how much stronger he is than her, of the fact that he could crush her in a heartbeat.

She can feel his mouth, hovering just above her pulse-point, and wonders if he's going to bite her. In that instant, she almost doesn't care. He would regret it immediately, and would turn her rather than let her die. She's certain of this. And if she was turned, then she would be of no more use to Klaus and his human-sacrifice-apalooza. And surely he couldn't hold a grudge against her for that, for being turned before he even learned a human doppelganger existed. Elijah would be pissed, she supposed, but their deal never technically included her staying human. Maybe it would be better that way.

She wonders if letting herself be turned to avoid being ritually murdered constitutes fighting as hard as she can or giving up completely.

She's brought back to herself when she realizes that would be precisely what Katherine did _(and look how well that turned out)_. She, and Stefan, (and, except when he's extremely angry with her, Damon), have always insisted that she's nothing like Katherine. But more and more, she thinks maybe they were all wrong.

When he begins placing light kisses up her neck, moving slowly to her mouth, when she tangles her hands in his hair without thinking in response, she knows they were all wrong.

She should stop this _(she doesn't think she can)_. She loves Stefan and only just got him back _(but you could say the same about Damon)_. Letting this happen would be wrong _(or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe she's enough not like Katherine to make this work, to bring them all through this alive)_.

She should leave.

She doesn't. She knows it would destroy him if she did. When his lips finally meet hers, she realizes it would destroy her too.


End file.
